Chapter 7
Rehab was humiliating.
No one tells you that surviving is sometimes embarrassing.
I had to relearn words.
Schedules.
Numbers.
Patience.
I hated patience.
I forgot names in the middle of conversations.
I cried because I could not remember my email password.
I snapped at nurses.
Then apologized.
Then forgot I had apologized and apologized again.
Maya made flashcards.
Marcus, my ex-husband, showed up unexpectedly with soup.
Yes.
My ex-husband.
We had divorced two years earlier because I chose work every time life asked me a question.
He stood in the doorway looking unsure.
“I heard.”
I stared at him.
“Everyone heard.”
He smiled sadly.
“Still sarcastic. Good sign.”
I wanted to laugh.
Instead, I cried.
He crossed the room and hugged me carefully.
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
“For what?”
“For not seeing how alone you were in that family.”
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t let you.”
“No,” he said. “But I stopped trying.”
There was no dramatic reunion.
No sudden romance.
Just a man who once loved me sitting beside my bed and helping me remember the word for spoon.
Life is strange that way.
Dylan was denied bail after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk.
Dad tried to intervene through lawyers.
That became mistake number two.
Emails surfaced showing he had instructed IT to erase footage.
Then phone records placed him at the building during the deletion.
Then financial records tied him to Dylan’s cover-up.
The board voted to remove him as CEO.
I watched the livestream from rehab.
Arthur Donovan sat at the head of the table one last time.
His face looked older than I had ever seen it.
When Elaine read the vote, he stared into the camera as if he knew I was watching.
Maybe he did.
I did not feel victorious.
I felt orphaned in a new way.
My mother was dead.
My father had chosen my brother over my life.
Dylan called me from jail two days later.
I should not have answered.
I did.
His voice shook.
“Claire, please.”
I said nothing.
“I didn’t mean for it to be that bad.”
That bad.
As if brain damage was an inconvenience.
“You tried to erase me.”
“You took everything from me first.”
“No, Dylan. You mistook not earning something for having it stolen.”
He started crying.
The sound once would have moved me.
Not anymore.
“I’m your brother.”
I looked at my speech therapy worksheet.
At the word memory written three times in shaky handwriting.
May you like
“No,” I said. “You’re the man who hit me from behind.”
Then I hung up.
